Which store do you normally purchase your house paint? Who carries the best brand for the price?

Question

Do normally go to paint specialty stores such as Sherwin Williams? Or do you normally buy it at home improvement stores like Lowes and Home Depot? Or do you buy it at department stores like Kmart or Walmart?

Answer 1

Home Depot's Behr brand is a wonderful value. It's one of the few that carries an enamel latex in all sheens (including flat), so that your paint is more durable and scrubable without wearing off. It's also got more solids in it than most and is comparable to both Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams.

The other consideration is something called VOCs...volatile organic compounds...which are the compounds in the paint that give it that wretched smell. Both Home Depot and Sherwin Williams have "low-VOC" paint available. If anyone in your home has asthma, COPD or any kind of sensitivity to the smell of paint, these are really decent paints that don't compromise coverage and durability.

Answer 2

Yes. I am particularly pissed when they have an item like 2 liter Coke on sale one week for 89 cents and the next week feature it as a sale item for a dollar. They either think people have already forgotten or don't care how much they get cheated. If they keep jacking the price up 10% a week that bottle will be five bucks in a year. I usually change brands when the competitor product is cheaper. When I have the time I will go to a different store that has a real sale instead of a phony sale (grapes for 99 cents instead of $2.99 a pound).

Answer 3

I usually use Behr from Home Depot, which was recently rated the best in Consumer Reports, but I also heard that Benjamin Moore was the best around. Both are pricey, though. .

If you hit it just right, you can often find a decent color of "oops" paint--paint that has already been mixed but someone decided they didn't want. HD and Lowe's usually sells these gallons of paint for $5. I have painted several rooms with oops paint.

Answer 4

Sherwin Williams is the store that we use for our 30 year standing paint contracting company.
Excellent coverage is one of the many reasons. Walmart, Lowes, Home Depot, etc have very inexpensive paint, you get what you pay for!
SW's coverage is excellent and long standing. We guarantee our work and I KNOW SW's can back us up on that.

Other good paints but on the higher end of $$$ :
Benjamin Moore
ICP

Answer 5

Sherwin Williams, or Wallauer Paint,and usually your local indepent hardware store would be my choice. Don't like Home Depot too much to chose from

Answer 6

Don't buy the Walmart brand paint - been there, done that, it's awful. Cheap but not good! It comes off whenever you clean something off the walls. This shows that there is a high ratio of water to pigment. However, you can get good paint somewhere like Walmart (or Home Depot etc) - buy the KILZ brand - very high pigmentation and one coat coverage. They say it will even cover black! Good luck.

Answer 7

I like Porter Paints. A little true narrative: Once I was going to buy paint from the Martha Stewart line at K-Mart.
No one was in that department to mix the paint, so they pulled someone in from the toy department. The color was supposed to be a pretty golden shade, and when the gal mixed it, it was a dark, ugly coral color. Not even close. She apparently didn't know how to make the formula...!!!

So I think not only the brand is important, but the place you buy the paint as well.

Answer 8

From Consumer Reports for interior paint:

"Best overall in all gloss levels; all are
CR Best Buys:
Behr low-luster, flat, semigloss $22 to $25
Dutch Boy low-luster, flat, semigloss $14 to $16
Dutch Boy is the least-expensive brand, but in the flat finish it proved less stain-resistant. Many paints faded.


Best chance for covering in one coat; all are CR Best Buys:
Behr $24 (low-luster)
Kilz $19 (low-luster)
Kilz $18 (flat)
All three scored well overall and provided reasonably good hiding with one coat, especially when using a darker color.

Best for high-traffic areas:
Behr $24, CR Best Buy
Kilz $19, CR Best Buy
Valspar $27
True Value $23, CR Best Buy
Dutch Boy $15, CR Best Buy
These five low-luster paints had high scores for staining and scrubbing, and resisted gloss changes. All faded, however.

Best for sunny spaces:
Valspar American Tradition satin, flat $22-$24

Benjamin Moore Regal Aquavelvet Eggshell, Regal Matte $37-$42

Dunn-Edwards $40
Glidden $40


All resisted fading. Choose the paint based on your desired sheen.


Best for flawed walls; all are CR Best Buys:
Behr $22
Kilz $18
Dutch Boy $14
Glidden $19
All these offer fine fade resistance in their gloss levels.

Other good values:

Sears $24
Ace Royal Touch low-luster, semigloss $23-$24
Olympic Premium low-luster, flat, semigloss $17-$21

Martha Stewart $20
Ralph Lauren $23
Valspar $22"

Seems to me Home Depot's Behr paint is the best overall...

Answer 9

You truly get what you pay for. Many manufacturer's private label their paint to the chain stores. The store tells the manufacturer what the sell price-point is and they make one for them. The one they make is designed for the price it will sell for and the profit of the vendor... the quality is way down the list of priorities.

It's preference for location to you, and how it worked for you... try them all; once.

I use Benjamin Moore... the lowest level I use is Moore Spec... lasts about 5 years or so. The best one is the Moore Style level... keeps the finish longer with wear etc. The pigments in all paint change within a year due to UV, sun, etc. Don't try to touch up without doing at least the whole wall.

Answer 10

I've owned two houses and I have always preferred the Walmart brand "Color Place".
It is usally under $12 and does a great job. I once bought an expensive brand from Lowes and it went on the walls like water.